Facebook Mobile

(NBC News) After years of speculation, the announcement put the rumors to rest.

A phone that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had repeatedly denied the company was "building", he confirmed that Facenook will partner with HTC Corporation to build them.

The device will integrate a new Facebook app into its Android operating system, named 'Facebook Home'.

"The home screen is really the soul of your phone. You look at it about 1 hundred times a day. It sets the tone for your whole experience. And we think that it should be deeply personal. It's a family of apps and you can install it and it becomes the hone of your phone, so we're calling this 'home'," said Zuckerberg.

On April 12th the 'Facebook Home' app will be available for download and installation for certain models of Android phones.

The new Facebook phone called 'HTC First' will also be available then, for about a hundred dollars each, sold exclusively at AT&T.

The new app and phone are designed to give Facebook a stronger foothold in the all-important and growing mobile market, and to make using Facebook easier and more frequent for the billion plus users.

But not everybody is excited about the Facebook phone.

"Yes I can see why Facebook wants to be in this market, but why as a consumer do I need this experience. Already when I'm at dinner, people are playing with Facebook on their phones. Do I want that to be even easier for them to ignore me," said Principal Analyst Redesign Mobile's Rakesh Agrawal.

A new phone, and another step in the evolution of social media and computing devices.